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View Poll Results: + Rep Poll: How many blocks will STAT have tonight?

Need the Dragon to wake. Team needs to - get Lin involved when it comes to scoring - to open it up for everyone else. Nothing like inspiration of a teammate, and having that teammate - take some pressure off you - so you can just get comfortable and dominate. Also when Lin scores: HIS ENTIRE TEAM IS HAPPY. GENUINELY HAPPY. People play better when they are laughing, smiling and having a good time.

* Fields, Smith and Shumpert combined for 17 points
If Lin can drop 38 on Kobe Bryant & the Lakers, he can do it against the Raptors.
* The guy CAN score, he finds a way. Needs to be pushed.

* Lin shut down Calderon. Calderon's 2pts came when Lin was on bench.
- surprisingly not many people noticed this.

Since Lin has been matched up against the other teams' starting PGs, starting with Brandon Jennings at Milwaukee, not one of them has had a good shooting game. Not one. Not even Derrick Rose. (Too bad he wasn't matched up on Rondo when he had that monster game. Lin allowed only two Calderon FGs in the game at MSG.) This was a reason why teams have become fixated on setting screens on Lin, some of them resulting in offensive fouls.

For a while, I've felt like the only one who thought Lin's defensive play bordered on phenomenal....... It seems like a few others are now noticing. (That forced air ball from Brandon Jennings at the end of the Milwaukee game was one of the best individual defensive plays I've ever seen. Lin forced an air ball and blocked a 3-pt shot in the 4th qtr of the Sixers game.)

But this raises the question: Why does Woodson send Lin to the bench in late half defensive situations? (D'Antoni did this too.) I'd only do this if Lin had at least two fouls at the end of the half.

And finally, too often we run plays for a Melo shot, and the shots don't go down. Or fails to finish on the drives to the basket. How many more times do we try this before we realize Melo just might not have it anymore? When he's playing well, he's actually passing the ball, but his shooting has become too unreliable to give him the lion's share of the FG attempts. (At least we're starting to see signs of life with Stoudemire.)

I put it down to an off night. No team can will every game. We had a dirty, dirty night with Turnovers, Poor Shooting, Poor Refs from what i have been reading etc. You cant win em all i suppose !

Phil Jackson was quoted saying when the Bulls won 72 games in a season that "We want to go on winning streaks , winning 5 - 6 in a row, and then when you lose a game, put it behind you , forget about it and get on another mini winning streak straight away. "

This is a good philosophy to have. Win 5 - 6 in a row, eventually you will have a bad game and lose but put it behind you and get on with business straight away !

And this is what we have to do. Come back hard and beat Pistons and the Bucks in the next two and get back on another winning streak !

Since Lin has been matched up against the other teams' starting PGs, starting with Brandon Jennings at Milwaukee, not one of them has had a good shooting game. Not one. Not even Derrick Rose. (Too bad he wasn't matched up on Rondo when he had that monster game. Lin allowed only two Calderon FGs in the game at MSG.) This was a reason why teams have become fixated on setting screens on Lin, some of them resulting in offensive fouls.

For a while, I've felt like the only one who thought Lin's defensive play bordered on phenomenal....... It seems like a few others are now noticing. (That forced air ball from Brandon Jennings at the end of the Milwaukee game was one of the best individual defensive plays I've ever seen. Lin forced an air ball and blocked a 3-pt shot in the 4th qtr of the Sixers game.)

But this raises the question: Why does Woodson send Lin to the bench in late half defensive situations? (D'Antoni did this too.) I'd only do this if Lin had at least two fouls at the end of the half.

And finally, too often we run plays for a Melo shot, and the shots don't go down. Or fails to finish on the drives to the basket. How many more times do we try this before we realize Melo just might not have it anymore? When he's playing well, he's actually passing the ball, but his shooting has become too unreliable to give him the lion's share of the FG attempts. (At least we're starting to see signs of life with Stoudemire.)

Dude Melo is 27 not 37, he is one of the best midrange shooters of this decade that can't hit them this season because of his Conditioning and injuries.

Are you sugesting that Knicks played like crap tonight because Lin wasn't the focal point of offense? Lin missed a lot of open looks tonight like everyone else. He wasn't creating on offense. He was part of the problems tonight.

Nope. I'm suggesting that - with everyone cold on the shot - the Knicks needed to shift back to Lin and do it earlier instead of play him for 20 solid minutes. Lin has a clutch gene and performs will under pressure. How many times did we come back from 15 pts down, 17pts down, 20pts down. In the past? That was when Lin was playing 40+ minutes.

* I also suggested that - the day-off was a mistake, that they should have had shooting practice/shooting drills.
* Taking only 9 shots and going 3/9 wouldn't be as bad as : all 3 shooting guards combining for 17 points.

If everyone is cold ~ you go with the guys that are most clutch. Clutch as in - the start making points happen, either on their own or through teammates.

Example: Boston Celtics.

Lin loses ball then steals it and drives through 4 celtics to score -then hits 3pter. This in turn inspires teammates, fires them up, distracts celtics. Melo then hits 2 shots and they end up +3 toward the end of the game.

The Lin - Novak pair has the highest scoring statistic of any combo on the knick squad. When Novak finally emerged onto the NBA stage for the Knicks - it was because Lin was looking for Novak - and started feeding Novak once he got hot; ignoring other teammates to dish to Novak because he knew Novak had the hot hand at that point.

I think you misunderstood my post. I was stating a - what they should have done to pull out an ugly win.

I have stated here and elsewhere that everyone had an off-night.
* I have also gone into detail explaining how Lin was more or less excluded from having an impact on the game - the premier minutes bulk of the middle - were given to Baron Davis.
* I have also stated the problems seen from/in BD from the 76ers game - were further magnified in the Raptors game.
* Woodson should have taken BD off the floor faster - like he did in the 76ers game.
* If you re-watch the 76ers game and focus on BD and his impact on the team and then the raptors - you'll understand.
* Hopefully BD can get his chemistry back together, set-the-ton for 2nd unit to move the ball better or instead start the 1st quarter with melo and amare, and work on his temper
- But as I have stated several times in the past, the offense starts to stagnate with Lin off the floor - its not necessarily about him shooting as much as - 1. his defense - which I have gone to some lengths to note many times 2. his ball movement 3. aggression and drawing opposing teams coverage 4. his ability to crush the spirit of the opposing team (see 76ers give up video) 5. he creates shots for teammates 6. he looks for the hot hand 7. he is fearless 8. huge clutch gene etc etc etc 9. the guy just steps it up as the game progresses, as he gets comfortable. 10. he figures it out - if given the chance over the course of a game - giving him maybe 20 minutes of which mainly come from 1st quarter

IMO the main question at this point is whether we're able to build another winning streak or we lost the momentum; if I didn't know this team I'd probably say "it's just one game", but I remember what happened after our W7 streak earlier this season. Only this season we lost at least 9 games (very "winnable" ones) to [then] < .500 teams including very shameful performances against Cleveland, Charlotte and Toronto. I did some math and checked the Bulls results, they lost only one game of this kind (against sliding down Portland). I have no idea how do we want to win the Atlantic Division if we're losing against definately beatable teams. I hope it was only one game, one-****-happens-game, but I won't be surprised if we hit our win-loss-win-loss routine and then finish the season weak, striving to seal the 8th seed.

I put it down to an off night. No team can will every game. We had a dirty, dirty night with Turnovers, Poor Shooting, Poor Refs from what i have been reading etc. You cant win em all i suppose !

Phil Jackson was quoted saying when the Bulls won 72 games in a season that "We want to go on winning streaks , winning 5 - 6 in a row, and then when you lose a game, put it behind you , forget about it and get on another mini winning streak straight away. "

This is a good philosophy to have. Win 5 - 6 in a row, eventually you will have a bad game and lose but put it behind you and get on with business straight away !

And this is what we have to do. Come back hard and beat Pistons and the Bucks in the next two and get back on another winning streak !

But as I have stated several times in the past, the offense starts to stagnate with Lin off the floor - its not necessarily about him shooting as much as - 1. his defense - which I have gone to some lengths to note many times 2. his ball movement 3. aggression and drawing opposing teams coverage 4. his ability to crush the spirit of the opposing team (see 76ers give up video) 5. he creates shots for teammates 6. he looks for the hot hand 7. he is fearless 8. huge clutch gene etc etc etc 9. the guy just steps it up as the game progresses, as he gets comfortable. 10. he figures it out - if given the chance over the course of a game - giving him maybe 20 minutes of which mainly come from 1st quarter

But Lin was NOT creating on offense last night. Raptors were daring him to shoot the ball and Lin couldn't buy a basket on wide-open looks. Knicks didn't lose because Lin wasn't allowed to run the offense.